Tuesday, 31 January 2017

With Creativations being over I can finally share a project with you that I made for my lovely boss, Kim, the owner of Emerald Creek Craft Supplies, and one of the bestest bosses ever!
She creates and sells the most fabulous embossing powders I know and getting to know hers finally hooked me up on heat embossing. I had liked using embossing powders before but with hers I started loving it.

I also love Seth Apter's dies and rubber stamps a lot. So when Kim told me that Seth would be demoing at a booth quite close to hers at Creativations I was inspired to create a project using her embossing powders and some of his dies. And this is the result:

I created a small mixed media piece on a 4'' x 6'' canvas board as I love the texture they provide.

I used old French dictionary pages that I put behind the die cut and heat embossed pieces.

The background was done by scraping on acrylic paint and taking some off again with a piece of card and pressing that down in other spots to create some random patterns and layers.

I also used some of Seth's rubber stamps in the background and for the center word. As I am from Austria I was very happy to accidentally come across the "Autrichien,enne" on one of the pages on my desk. So this project is "my story Autrichien" in a way and I am a girl Autrichienne....so I knew I had to use this word on my make!

Of course I wish I could have been at Creativations in person and meet all the wonderful artists there and my boss, Kim, but knowing that some of my artwork was there still is very exciting and something that makes me proud and happy!

Most of the pieces were glued to the canvas board using sticky foam pads for more depth.

So once more my finished piece. Oh, I forgot to mention that I also used a tea bag behind the center piece but the effect is very subtle. I just love how the Hammered Metal and Charred Gold embossing powders look on Seth's wonderful designs!

Stay tuned for another post that's to come within the next twelve and a half hours...it's time for another dare at Emerald Creek Dares and I will be sharing my latest DT project with you. But for now thanks for stopping by and - as always -

Monday, 23 January 2017

As usual on every other Monday I am inviting you over to the Calico Craft Parts Blog where I am sharing my latest project with you.

You will not only learn how to quickly and easily create selfmade backgrounds like this one...

...but of course the secret of what's inside that matchbox will be reveiled as well (which finally takes us to the gorgeousness and versatility of the wonderful Calico Craft PartsI have the great pleasure to create with as one of their DT members! ;)

Wednesday, 18 January 2017

Today sees the second round of January project posts from the Emerald Creek DT and they are all about the new products Kim will be introducing at Creativations (formerly known as CHA) tomorrow! (There will not only be a lot of awesome new products to check out at her booth but also some of my projects I made for Emerald Creek, which makes me a very proud and happy bunny! Yay!)

One of the most impressive new goodies are the lovely gemstones Kim sent me - and I knew immediately what I wanted to create with them.

Last November I went to Munich with my son and husband and there we visited the residence and the treasury. I was deeply impressed by the wonderful treasures and by how much love, skill and labour had gone into their makings! There were crowns, golden boxes, house shrines and many other wonderful things - and all of them were outstanding pieces of craftsmanship!

So I decided to create my own little treasure chest using the lovely gemstones and Emerald Creek's fab embossing powders!

My treasure chest is not that shiny and golden, but you know me...I am a grunge crafter and love all things old and heavily worn...which is why I wanted to go for an aged look with my project (imagine that the chest has just been found in a dusty attic or crypt!).

But let's start from the beginning...lol.

I dry embossed a piece of black cardstock using a Spellbinders embossing folder and my Sizzix. Then I painted the embossed card and the balsa wood box with DecoArt Venetian Gold Dazzling Metallic paint.

The dry card was glued to the chest's lid using matte DecoArt Decou-Page. Then I dabbed on some clear embossing ink directly from the inkpad and heat embossed the lid using Emerald Creek Charred Gold embossing powder. I used it on some die cut fleurs de lis too.

If you want to find out what my teamies have used the gemstones for, simply hop over to Emerald Creek Dares and check out their makes too! I hope you like my treasure chest (and the CHA projects if you happen to stop by Kim's booth during the next days ;)!!!

Tuesday, 17 January 2017

Servus, salut, hi, thanks for stopping by and welcome to a quick post today that is meant to invite you over to the DecoArt Mixed Media blog where my latest project and tutorial have just gone live and are awaiting you.

I just had to have this gorgeous Sizzix "Snowglobe" dies set the moment I saw it! I just knew it would go together with my beloved Gelli plate prints and DecoArt media so well!

So if you are interested in the how-to, simply click HERE to get to the DecoArt Mixed Media blog and the full tutorial! I would love to see you over there!

Sunday, 15 January 2017

This month the challenge for us all - the DT and the players - is to pick and share our personal Top 3 steampunk and/or industrial makes from the last year. The players can also pick projects that weren't done for our challenges, but the DT had to choose among their DT projects of course.

It was of course hard to pick my favourites as I have been on this DT since the very beginning of SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges in 2013 (being the co-founder) and have a lot to choose from - but narrowing them down also meant to revisit all of them and that brought a lot of sweet memories back.

If you want to learn more about the projects just click on their titles to get to the according posts.

The little birdie on my canvas was a fleamarket find and I still love how it looks down on the canvas (as if it was checking that everything was done properly). The lightbulb to its right was a gift from lovely Brigitte (aka coutureuse) - which only makes this canvas even more dear to my heart. I love to have objects incorporated in my projects that have a personal meaning or tell stories. Secondly I chose my hommage to The Wizard of Oz: April 2015"Pay no Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain!"

I just love the story and the original movie with lovely Judy Garland! But my absolute favourites from the movie are the lion and the wicked witch!

My last choice for my personal Top 3 makes is the steampunk notebook I made last summer, as I still love how beautifully the stencilled and dry-brushed background on the cover turned out. I remember I could have continued to dry-brush on many more layers as I enjoyed that process so much...but gladly I managed to stop at the right time. lol

August 2016"Altered Steampunk Notebook"Well, I hope you enjoyed my picks and I highly recommend you check out what my teamies have chosen! So hop over to SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges to find out about their favs! And of course I can't wait to see what you will pick and share with us!Hope to see you over there and play along with us soon!Hugs and happy crafting!Claudia xxx

Thursday, 5 January 2017

Hi, servus and welcome to my first post for 2017!
I hope you have all had fantastic holidays and a wonderful new year's eve! May the new year bring you loads of joy, fun and success on your creative endeavours!

I am kicking off the new year with a make from last year - but one that I can only now finally share as it was a gift that has now been delivered to a wonderful young man I had the chance to get to know when visiting my friend Laura and her lovely family in the UK two years ago. I know that he loves red pens and collecting stones and fossils (like I do too) - so I made a fossil cabinet for him.

This is just a detail from one of the cabinet's sides. I used one of the fab TCW stencils, DecoArt media Modeling Paste and Texture Sand Paste and loads of DecoArt paints to create the look of fossils being embedded in stone (well - at least I tried to).

The cabinet came as a blank white cardboard box and I started with dabbing the DecoArt Texture Sand Paste onto the box using my fingers. That was followed by adding the fossil fish and trilobite shapes using TCW stencils, a palette knife and DecoArt media white Modelling Paste. Once all was dry I added a thorough coat of Raw Umber as a base to work on. Once that had dried I went in with various DecoArt Americana paints - dry brushing and painting them on as needed.

DecoArt Metallic Lustres were added to the raised areas of the fossil shapes to imitate a bit of a sheen
where the fossils had been "polished" by wind and weather over the ages.

The last step was to paint on the marbled look - using a fine tip brush...

...and to add an old map from an old dictionary to the back, toning it down with a wash of DecoArt paints to make it match the whole design of my cabinet.

I just love the effect of the Texture Sand Paste, contrasting the shiny fossils!

I had a lot of fun creating this little keepsake for a young explorer! And I hope he likes his cabinet!!!